Why Do I Attack Other People in the Wine Industry, as We Like to Call It!

I have nothing against liquor salespeople and Gallo and industrial wine purveyors.

They're in a different milieu than niche importers and have a different product than what we love. They're businesspeople who just happen to be selling a commodity based on fermented grapes. That's all we really have in common.

What angers me is when Budweiser sets up "artisan" small breweries and wine industrialists talk artisan wines because they are trying to rip-off a culture based on work in the vineyards and great wines just to line their pockets. I get angry when horrible spoof that's been manipulated for wine wine writers on $25,000.00 junkets uses the same language that Marc Ollivier or Catherine Roussel use.

I don't care if Gallo wants to sell Gallo. But the Gallos, the Constellations, the Southern Wine & Spirits and all the megacompanies should clear out and stop expropriating the language of real wine to sell industrial beverages.

I also think niche wine importers have a resonsibility to remain faithful to the people who buy their wines and who look for their logos on a label. There is a line we don't cross -- we work with small producers and stay loyal to them. We make clear to our customers that what's in the bottle in not a slogan waiting for a cashout but the product of real work.

Who appointed me the wine cop? Nobody. I just believe in honesty and I can play the cancer card and you can't. Although I was an asshole before I had cancer.

I was also an idealist and remain an idealist. Wine is a business but there is still place for idealism, passion and crazyness. It is still based on something natural, something which transcents the Bernie Madoffs, Michel Rollands, paid-off journalists, or market manipulators. It is a fight to keep it honest but there are still enough of us around in our little world to keep real wine alive.

- Joe Dressner 5-30-2009 1:56pm

keep this up and I'll have to open my own distributorship. Oh wait, that requires capital.....dammit.

posted by Pleiades 5-30-2009 3:17pm

That's what it's all about for me, too

I prefer to promote wines grown by real people, not real-big-corporations.

I like to know that I'm making a positive difference in the lives of growers who matter.

Unfortunately, to paraphrase Sterling Hayden's General Ripper in Dr. Strangelove (who was, supposedly, paraphrasing Clemenceau) too many wine consumers have neither the time, nor the training, nor the inclination to seek out better (not necessarily more expensive)wines. They settle for so much less, and I think that's a shame.

I have to regard some of the "industrial" bottlings of fermented grape juice product as gateway wines, and some folks decide that they like wine and are curious and adventurous enough to seek out the wines that are really worth drinking. That's what I live for. Those are the folks who make my job rewarding.

posted by DC-Joe 5-30-2009 8:33pm

I used to believe in gateways, and measurably perhaps, maybe the model is valid. But now I'm convinced that more people are turned off by formulated wine, even well intentioned formulations, and it's better to start and end with the real. Formulations and gateways invite conformist, inhumane engagements with abstractions. What a waste of time, effort and money!

posted by putnam 5-31-2009 2:41am

fdb

you should be like the mayor, franklin delano bloomberg. he just yells "you're a disgrace!" when he doesn't like someone.

posted by the sheriff 5-31-2009 8:27am

why do you attack other people? Why Not???

posted by Gene 5-31-2009 12:48pm

Joe, when you write "niche", are you pronouncing it "neesh" or "nitch"? It might matter.

posted by skirsch 5-31-2009 7:58pm

neetch

posted by Joe Dressner 5-31-2009 10:08pm

but wait, that's how you pronounce "Nietzche," or am I mistaken?

posted by putnam 6-1-2009 11:42am

Maybe Joe meant Nietzche wine importers.

posted by skirsch 6-1-2009 5:48pm

Natch!

rhymes with bleach!

posted by Steve Edmunds 6-1-2009 7:08pm

I don't put much stock into the notion of gateways. Human taste is far too sloppy, complex, and convolutedly formed for such a neat, tidy, scripted concept. If something is genuinely intriguing and uncompromisingly individual, then people will come to it, attracted by the very things that are non-gateway-ish about it. Carefully crafted aesthetic lilypads are almost more insidious than the mega-corporate stuff they're supposed to lead people away from.

posted by Clarke B. 6-2-2009 11:27am

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Joe Dressner - Captain Tumor Man!

Hi, I'm Joe Dressner the famous wine importer and I have brain cancer!

I already have a wine blog and frankly wine is such a luxury business that I hate to mix my cancer problems with my wine observations. I think it would be a general downer for the lifestyle crowd out there.

Furthermore, we in the wine trade always claim there are tremendous health benefits to drinking wine. I've already had cardiovascular bypass surgery over eight years ago and now I got a tumor aggressively rattling in my brain. My colleagues in the glamorous wine industry want me to keep it quiet.

So, I've started this wonderful new blog to discuss wine, brain tumors, my life and to give you hot tips on handling the cancer stricken around you. There will also be practical wine/radiation pairings when I start radiation therapy and chemotherapy next week.

Having brain cancer means I might both physically and intellectually decline. So, I will be using this blog as a venue to pursue petty vendettas against relatives, acquaintances and people in the wine trade.

I might also lose touch with reality and say things that are not true or are only half true. The important thing is to have fun and enjoy this rare and precious time in my life.

One of my pet vendettas is my cousin Dr. Barbara Hirsch. Dr. Barbara Hirsch is a very important Great Neck Endocrinologist, who was raised and nurtured by my parents. Dr. Hirsch waited until my father was near death and my mother was suffering from a rare neuromuscular disorder, to write them a seven page letter denouncing them for being horrible to her for the entirety of her life! Despite my concerns, Dr. Hirsch still refuses to apologize.

Last night, I drank a beautiful bottle of Bourgueil Clos Sénéchal 2005 from Pierre Breton. It was sublime and reminded me that I used to be healthy. Not only that, the vineyard used to be there before I existed. It exists independently of my having cancer and will continue to exist. You ought to buy some.

August 2009 Postscript: Not only does it exist independently of my cancer, it also exists independently of Louis/Dressner Selections. After 18 years, they have dumped us for Kermit Lynch. Oh well. At least I'm alive!

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